| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
| Iberofon | |||||
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Iberofon was founded in 1959, and evolved into a mastering studio, metal-plating plant, and manufacturer of vinyl records by 1963. Cassette production started by the end of the 1960's. Ibermemory, a daughter-company for production of CD, was formed in the 1980's. Sonopress entered as 49% owners of Ibermemory in 1993, forming Sonopress Ibermemory S.A. Vinyl manufacturing was discontinued shortly after. A person working for Iberofon said they made Unplugged In New York records, but none have turned up. So far only Nevermind, Nevermind singles, and In Utero have been found. Today Iberofon is a manufacturer of various plastic parts, both in Spain and in the Czech Republic. Matrix codes The Spanish Nirvana vinyl releases were pressed by either Iberofon or Eurogram (for which Iberofon cut all the lacquers and sometimes processed metal plates). Iberofon usually used direct metal mastering (DMM) for the releases they pressed themselves. The DMM matrix codes are all handwritten, etched into the copper mother plates, appearing semi-deep and mostly smooth (though the Come As You Are 7" test pressing with wrong B side etchings are unusually edgy). Nevermind GEF 24425 LP matrix: Side A: GEF-24425-A 1N3-DMM Side B: GEF-24425-B 1N3-DMM According to an Iberofon ex-employee, the N3 part should refer to the number of the cut, but in that case it's weird that all the Nirvana records had to be cut three times to be successfull. Personally I believe the 1 is the number of the cut, while N3 refer to the type of lathe used. I think there is a lathe called Neumann III, and Iberofon used Neumann lathes. The DMM part obviously refers to direct metal mastering. Some records have DMI written instead, this seems to identify which mode the machine was set to when cutting. DMI mode was usually used when cutting 7" singles. Both modes could be used when cutting 45 rpm 12" records. It does not seem to have hanything to do with the rpm though, as the In Utero album has DMI in the matrices. Quantities Many sets of stampers can be created from the mothers, and Iberofon used to press 8000 records from each pair of stampers. That is eight times as many as for example Erika and Rainbo. According to other sources, the quality detoriates badly after more than 1000 records. The Kill Rock Stars 12" compilation plates even cracked after pressing 1000 records. Quantities pressed of course depends on the success of the band. Nirvana were marked as A0, which means about 30,000 7" singles, 120,000 12" singles, and more than 300,000 albums. That is not including repressings (repressings were often done at Eurogram, as with the Nevermind LP). However, sometimes a lot of records were also returned to Iberofon for recycling. It was common for record labels to press 30,000 singles and return 10,000, as it somehow saved them taxes. Sometimes posters or t-shirts were included as "limited edition" treats, often the first 20,000 or so records would have this. Test pressings Iberofon pressed two types of test pressings. As normal, regular test pressings were used to test the quality of the cut and plates. The first five copies pressed with each father were used to test the quality. White label test pressings were sent to the record label if requested. If not, the test pressings were pressed with regular labels and distributed to the Iberofon employees for free. If using DMM, they often first only etched the catalog number and side information on the copper mothers, and once they had been approved the remaning code were added. The other type was test pressings requested by the record labels. These were never returned to Iberofon. They were used to test the quality of the recordings. One could probably call these test pressings in-house reference discs. Often they even sent lacquers, not pressed vinyl records. Iberofon was frequently used as a mastering studio for this purpose. So much that they bought a high pressure pressing machine with higher sound quality, completely different from the medium pressure machines used for commercial pressings. This machine was not useful to press thousands of records, just a few. It could only press jukebox-sized spindle holes. In addition, it could not melt labels onto the records, as these would have burned up in the process. Records pressed with this press was also thicker. However, if the test was accepted for production, the plates could still be used on regular pressing machines, and the center hole would still be exact. As for lacquers-only, "acetates", a few were made. They cut four 10" (7" records are usually cut on 10" lacquers) lacquers with Smells Like Teen Spirit and a few other songs. These were never returned to Iberofon. They also cut a 2x12" lacquer set for a release party, with the following tracks: Side 1: Smells Like Teen Spirit - In Bloom - Come As You Are - Breed Side 2: Lithium - Polly - Drain You - Something In The Way There are no matrix codes on these lacquers, as they were not meant for production, just for the record label to test the recording, and play on the release party. Cassettes Iberofon also manufactured cassettes. Although no regular cassettes have been found yet, the Iberofon ex-employee says that they usually also made cassettes for every vinyl release, and remembers playing his Nevermind cassette in his car. There is a four-track promo cassette for From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah which was included with Ragazza, a girls' magazine. Normally they manufactured 3-10,000 cassettes for each magazine. |
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 1. Nevermind lacquer cut by Iberofon for Eurogram  2. Nevermind GEF 24425 side B matrix Thanks to Eugenio and his friend at Iberofon, and Enrico Vincenzi (images 1-2). | |||||
| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
